I've had my new aluminum 2.4 GHz MacBook for 2 weeks now, and I think it's perfect in terms of comparing it to the previous generation MacBook that I bought last year (White, 2.0 GHz). I can overlook the subtle flaws such as the screen and the keyboard because, frankly, the previous generation had it's own share of major flaws. Here's a breakdown of what I love about my new one after using the previous gen for over a year:
- The body is much more rigid; it'll be hard to dent this thing--especially the keyboard palmrest area. The old White MacBook had a plastic palmrest so it would bend a lot and felt very flimsy. Also the aluminum palmrest is less likely to get "stained" like the older white one from your oil and sweat, so there's less maintenance to deal with.
- They fixed the caps lock key on the new MacBook where if you accidently hit it, it won't light up. You actually have to hold the caps lock key down for about 1 second to activate it (as opposed to half a second). This is useful because I always accidently hit it when I meant to hit the Tab key to switch fields (like to a password field) and realize that I can't log in because my password was all caps! Very frustrating! But Apple thought ahead and fixed this for people like me
- The speakers are MUCH louder than the older MacBook. I have the volume currently set at 30% because at 50%, it's equivalent to 100% (or max) volume on the old White MacBook. Also the sound is much more crisp and clear.
- The laptop in general runs VERY quiet and cool... the old one, whenever I'd just goto youtube, the fans would kick in and the CPU jumped to 90%. It got very loud and hot to the touch where the palmrest was (and the bottom of the case too, around the CPU area). The new one is so much different... it does not get hot, but warm to the touch and only at the bottom. The palmrest area is still stone cold. I have yet to hear the fans kick in on this new MacBook--the loudest component is the optical drive if that says anything! I usually have about 9-10 apps running on a daily basis.
- The new battery reading on the side is very handy, although I rarely used on the old MacBook (the indicator was on the bottom though for the older model). But it's good to know that it's now easily accessible.
- The trackpad -- my GOD it's so wonderful. If you haven't touched one yet at an Apple Store, I will describe it the best way I can. It feels like gliding your fingers across silk. It's a real pleasure to use too. And the non-button is not even an issue. You would normally move your thumb down to the bottom where the button is supposed to be, and click the area and it works the way it's supposed to. Even right-clicking works now! Function-wise, it works exactly how you expect it would, but it looks a lot cleaner now. I don't really use all the gestures yet, but once in a while I'll use the four-finger gesture to bring up the application switcher or expose/desktop.
- Photoshop CS4 + new MacBook trackpad = Major Win. Wow. That's all I'll say. Speed is fast of course, but the way to manipulate the images w/ the new trackpad gestures just makes the product so much more enjoyable to use.
- The keys feel the same way as the old MacBook but seem a lot quieter. Plus on my model they light up
- The LED screen is very bright and vivid. It's definitely a lot brighter than the older model. I have to keep it down to 80% brightness to match my old LCD MacBook screen's brightness at times. However, the software has a built in sensor to automatically adjust the screen brightness depending on the ambient lighting conditions (like the iPhone).
- The hard drive and battery are now much easily accessible, compared to the coin trick you had to do with the older model (you had to use a coin or large flat object to open the battery out and change the hard drive).
- In general the overall responsiveness of the system is highly acceptable. My older system was a Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz w/ 4 GB of DDR2 RAM. The new system is a 2.4 GHz w/ 2 GB of DDR3 RAM. Even though I have less RAM, the new DDR3 definitely makes a huge difference--being almost double the bus speed, it's just as responsive as if I had 4 GB. I can't wait until 4 GB RAM prices drop and I'll make the upgrade to see how much faster this thing can go.
- One neat thing is the new white indicator light on the bottom right of the case is a thin little light (like the MacBook Air) and you can't tell there is a light there until it turns on. It literally bleeds through the case. I guess it's hard to describe unless you see it in person. But the effect is very cool looking.
- The best thing over all the new features is the weight--which was the primary reason I bought it. I can definitely feel the weight difference between the previous MacBook model (5 lbs) compared to the new one (4.5 lbs). It feels a lot lighter than 4.5 lbs but is definitely lighter in general. The new MacBook Pro was going to be my second choice, but I felt 5.5 lbs is still too heavy. I'm very picky like that. But the MacBook is sufficiently powerful enough for my daily needs. I didn't buy it for gaming, but it's nice to be able to play Fallout 3 at the airport if I ever get really bored. And yes, I tested Fallout 3 on the thing and it works! It runs pretty smooth too at Medium settings. I have to reboot to Windows XP though (via BootCamp), but it works if I ever need it.
This pretty much sums up my impressions so far. This is coming from a person who's used a PC for 20 years, and recently switched to Mac a year and half ago. So this MacBook is far and away probably more perfect than any PC notebook I've used in the last 10 years of my life.
I hope this helps an owner of the previous generation MacBook who is comtemplating on buying a new one!
